The Wordless Apology Of A Ghost
by Graysi
Summary: Klaus declines the call from Elijah for perhaps the twelfth time that day. He knows they have to leave town - now. But Caroline's reaction in the cellar had thrown him; he had planned to have left before she ever found out that he had been 'staked'. And now he can't help but follow her, stumbling into the woods, even though it's 5 in the morning now and he really has to go. (3x22)


_Well, I haven't been on here in a while. I know this isn't my usual story basis, but in the last year, like so many others, I've become obsessed with this pairing. It's not much of a story mind, despite the amount of words in it. It's set after 3x22, the season finale when Caroline thinks Tyler and Klaus are dead and on this, Klaus is planning to leave with his family to avoid Alaric, because no one knows what happened with Elena and Matt or Alaric yet. It's not a story really, nothing happens much but I'm writing other things and I just want to get started with something... Okay. (Also, just a note, Caroline's aware that Klaus is dead but the amount of times these guys have seen ghosts and right now, after Tyler, she doesn't really care.)  
I don't own The Vampire Diaries. _

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She stumbles down the river bank, loud echoing moans escaping her lips, her breaths quick and ragged. She's crying. In her hand she holds a black satchel and she's twisting the handle like she's trying to wring necks. She almost falls a few times because her tears and her hysteria make it hard to see and her makeup-less red rimmed eyes make her look years younger.

Eventually, after her hysterical crying leads her to trip over a root, she _does_ fall, and settles there where she landed hard on her knees, her hands cupping her mouth and breathing like an animal, panicked gasping followed by shaking hollow inhaling like she's still in shock. He swallows, his jaw flinching and his eyes flash, watching her.

He stands on a height, to the right of her where she can't see him. He won't go down to her. Her tears and her choked shuddering gasps send spasms of detonating guilt, shredding the inside of his head to bits. He's as still as an animal, captured in the stare of its hunter, though his eyes are too pained and shocked to be as controlled. He would look captivated in fury were it not for those large apologetic eyes, like a child who just understood that they had made her own mother cry.

She screams out desperately once, her hands shaking in horror at her face, curled rigidly like claws and it doesn't make him flinch exactly, but the black fire in his eyes would burn you to embers. Her nails settle into her forehead, embedding into her skin and she bends over between her knees so she can almost feel the wetness of the motionless leaves on the ground.

She's quieter now, but it's because her eyes are squeezed shut, her face contorted, her shoulders shaking, silently sobbing.  
It's a pitiful scene, the tormented girl crying in a silent wood just before the sun has risen, alone.

Except she's not alone, and the only other company she has is frozen, stiff jawed and wishing he could go down to her and wrap his arms around her and fix it. Just fix it! He can't though, so he's forced to watch her, slowly getting more illuminated by the rising sun, her hands clutching forcefully through her hair. She mustn't know that it was a trick, that they were both alive, he and Tyler. This is how things should be, he tries to tell himself. He must be resolute. He must not be manipulated. He must not bend from a few tears from a pretty girl. This is what it means to be strong; this is how you get what you want. And yet, what he wants…

He should go. Slip away before she saw him. Slip away before she understood. But she's crying and he can't leave.

Her hands unfurl in her hair now and she breathes deeply and unsteadily, trying to calm herself. Her back straightens and she pushes her chaotic hair from her face, her hands shaky and fragile. She pulls the bag onto her lap and unzips it to pull out a long threatening piece of wood. A stake.

He flinches back, his eyes flashing, surprise and anger and even betrayal painting over his former pained gaze. How did she get the White Oak? She had seen him, she knew; he was a dead man. He turns to disappear and furiously try to forget that this girl, who he had watched crying for the past hour despite the torment he felt not being able to go down to her, this girl who he would have saved the life of countless times, is about to try and end his life. Every time! Every time was always a distraction, there was always a motive. And crying in a forest it seems, has the same rules.

But she didn't turn to face him; she didn't run to flash at his side in an instant. Instead, she holds it numbly in her hands, fingering the sides gently and swallowing hard. He steps forward once, silently, and she doesn't turn, too wrapped up in her thoughts. He frowns, dangerous and angry, his eyes searching her movements frantically like he has until sunrise to figure out what she's doing, which by his judgement is only seconds away. He can see her swallow hard and grasp the stake more firmly, fingers overlapping and jaw set.

She lifts it slowly and suddenly his face is washed over by one emotion that so rarely features on his face: fear. His eyes widen in horror and he sucks in a breath, comprehension tightening his chest and sending his stomach hurtling downwards.  
"Caroline, _no_!" he roars and races to her and even though he knows he'll reach her in seconds, she's just as fast as he and anything could happen in that brief instant.

Nothing slows but he becomes so aware of _everything _and he grabs the crystal moments that could break at any moment with crazed and horrified eyes; she tightens her grip on the stake, she whips her head round to face him, and disbelieving and utter shock settles itself on her face.

He crashes into her, hurtling to his knees and pulling her waist into his side with one hand and wrenching the stake from her grasp with the other.

A silence follows, broken only in fragments from her quick paced breaths. He turns so his appalled gaze bores into hers. He could have seen every eyelash, long and dark from her tears and every bite in her skin, from her unforgiving nails and her blue unnerved eyes staring back in disbelief. He would also be aware that he's gripping her waist much too tight but he finds it difficult to concentrate on any of these details, too overcome with a demented terror that she was just about to die.

"Caroline" he chokes out, proper old-English tones more prominent; his claimed 'indifferent' feelings about her dropping to the floor in an instant. He had always convinced himself that she was just a girl; an extremely beautiful girl indisputably, but just a girl, meaningless and replaceable.

This assumption unfortunately has always dissolved whenever she seemed to be in danger: when Tyler pounding on his door yelled that he had bit her and with a swift nod he rushed to her house prepared to tear open his veins for her.

Or when Stefan, dead eyed and slow stated that Alaric had Caroline and Elena and would kill them if he did nothing. That time was different because he knew dark and awful in his mind that it wouldn't be as easy to save her and that time was different because she gazed at him frightened and obedient with blood stains around her mouth and black marks dyeing her skin under her eyes. And she had whispered quiet and shaky and so awfully grateful to see him, "thank you." There was no way he could deny that she meant nothing to him when she said that.

He swallows tilting his head threateningly like a madman, irrational fear draining the warmth from his veins.  
"Don't Caroline" he whispers, scared to talk too loud, as this was one of those comprehensive moments when he realised that she was worth more than all the finest jewels he had collected. It was _Caroline_. He stares at her intently, silently pleading and appealing to her. _Don't_.

She's still surprised of course, from the lifesaving ghost shouting her name in the lonely forest but her shock has passed and fast falling heavy tears roll unapologetically down her face like an afterthought. It seems to sweep over her as an epiphany and the horrors of what she's seen in the last year fill her eyes again. Niklaus's shock thaws as well and his jaw stiffens again, apologies and sorrow and powerlessness fill him like they did when he first found her, tear blind and making her way towards the wood before the sun even had time to make its first appearance.

He exhales, exhausted from swimming against the current that would never let up: he couldn't save her from herself; God knows he had tried too many times with himself. For once, he had no power; there was nothing he could do, but stare hopeless into her unwavering tortured eyes, too drained to even wipe away her own falling tears. He'd walk through fire to save her, but if she _was_ the fire?

The sun is glittering every raindrop clinging to the leaves on the ground and hanging off the edge of the trees. It's so silent, like nothing would ever make a noise again. They can't even hear any early morning cars yet. A voice in the back of his mind reminds him that by revealing himself to Caroline he might have forfeited the safety of his family but it seems apparent now that he _can't_ leave her anyway. Her chaotic blond hair surrounds her head like a halo and her addictive blue eyes make her look like a heartbroken angel. Klaus had seen his fair share of broken angels in all his years but never one that made him so sorry that he couldn't save her.

"You're dead" she states, almost silently and not to create complications for her he nods. Her eyes flutter. "I'm sorry" She sounds it. He doesn't know what to say to her that wouldn't be a lie so he just nods again, dropping the stake to the ground. He can hardly hear it thump. Slowly, don't scare her, he pulls her down with him on the forest floor and they look up at the trees from the ground, the sky slowly getting brighter and more tragic if you were to compare it with the numbed immortals lying on the cold ground.

He can't seem to say anything to her; it isn't normal 'Caroline tears' that he can handle, who he could explain how much potential she had to, how much the world was waiting to offer her and pretty words that he wanted to share with her. He had spent the most part of a century trying to figure out what would stop Rebekah having that hollow look before he realised it was just staying with her. Not that he played it out much, but still, he understood. So he said nothing and lay beside Caroline and watched the world wake up with her.

After a moment her silent crying and her hitched breathing settles and she breathes in one broken ragged breath, like it's her last, and her body relaxes beside his. The leaves rustle carefully as her right hand edges down to find his own and timidly twine her fingers with his. She clutches it like a lifeline and it sends another tremor of guilt rebounding agonisingly in his head, but it also makes a fire in his chest that insists one thing to him: _save her_. He squeezes her hand back and closes his eyes.


End file.
